Archive for the ‘Geek’ Category
Feedback and Changes
Today I got some feedback from Nadiah saying that she was having some problems leaving comments and subscribing to this blog’s feed. I am so thankful that she let me know, and I’ve spent the night (hopefully!) fixing the problems!
Problem One: The RSS Feed
Some of you may have noticed a few weeks ago I added the domain http://lifesvisualjournal.com to this blog. This was after a change in name quite a few months ago. Because I hadn’t completed the entire URL change-over some problems have occured. I am SO sorry about this.
To solve this problem I have completed moved this blog over to the new URL: http://lifesvisualjournal.com, so all the permalinks have been changed. You can still access this blog through http://taliacarbis.com until I change that to a more general homepage.
So if you have this blog bookmarked etc. then please update the link and the RSS feed. 
Problem Two: The Comments
The second problem Nadiah had was with leaving comments. I know that Debbie has let me know that she’s had problems commenting before, so I thought it was definintely time to fix things. I have installed Disqus, a commenting system, which should make things easier for you all to comment.
You (hopefully!) have a few options to either leave a comment like you normally do, sign in with disqus and track your comments, or log in with facebook, twitter and other things. Now, this hasn’t been tested so if you could leave a comment on one of the entires for me (and let me know how you went/logged in) that would be fantastic.
If you don’t want to leave a comment you can also just ‘like’ the post- similar to facebook, but not connected.
Phew
So hopefully (wow, I think I have said that way too many times this post!), the problems are fixed! If you do experience any more difficulties then please just send me an email and I will do my best to fix it.
My Email: talia.carbis (@) gmail.com
Thanks for visiting my site again! keep checking back for more updates!
Get rid of ‘blogs I’m following’ from Google Reader
I made this quick little ‘how to’ screencast to show you how to remove that pesky ‘Blogs I’m following’ category from your google reader.
The main reason that I chose to do this was because I wanted to categorise the blogs i follow via the ‘follow’ button on their blogs, in the same way that all my other blogs are categorised.
For me, categorising is an important part of blog reading. It means that I can access my regular reads quickly, and that I can draw inspiration on certain topics easily by browsing the blogs in that category!
Remove Blogger from Google Reader from Talia Carbis on Vimeo.
Tags: blogs, blogs I'm Following, google, reader, video, vimeo
Bounce Rates
Lately I’ve been learning more about bounce rates in my Google Analytics. Here’s a bit of a summary on what they are:
“Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.”
If you have Google Analytics you can view your bouce rate by going Visitors > Visitor Trending > Bounce Rate.
Basically the SMALLER your bouce rate is, the better, becaues that means that people ‘stick around’ when they get to your site. I like to imagine it like this:
Your website/blog is a big bed. People run into your room and they jump on your bed. Sometimes the bed is not what the person wants and as soon as they jump on the bed, they jump off again. You want to make your bed super comfy so that when people jump onto your bed they fall into it and go to sleep, dreaming about lovely things they see on your website!
Bouce rates are measured as percentages. The percentage that’s good for your site will depend on who your target audience is, and what their typical behaviour is. My bounce rate usually sits at about 65%, what’s yours?
My bounce rate from the last week
You can read more about bounce rates over at wikipedia.
Some tips for improving your bouce rate.
Tags: analytics, bouncerate, Geek, google, Tech
